GENDER POWER

Kate Chung, The Toronto Star, March 7, 2017

OWN member Kate Chung was interviewed on March 7th by the Toronto Star on the feminist movement. The other interviews can be found here: Feminist interviews – Toronto Star.

Kate Chung, 74 (Toronto Raging Grannies):
Star: What did you make of the march?
“Marches like this help build solidarity, but I hope it’s not all focused on the United States. We’re brainwashed here to think that Canada is so wonderful and we live in the best country in the world but, I’m sorry, there are still things to fix. This is not a perfect place and I see things sliding backwards. I’m old enough to remember the 1970s, when we had hope that change was coming.
Also, there’s no such thing as just a women’s issue. Climate, the future of this planet, justice, refugees, pipelines, war and peace, homelessness — we’re not just fighting for our own grandchildren but all grandchildren. To be a Granny, you don’t have to be a certain age, a grandmother, or a mother. You just have to be a woman and have attitude. We need to recruit.”

Why I Am a Feminist

March 8th – International Women’s Day: Yes, we still need feminism and I am a feminist. Why?Because my mother was a battered wife.Because when she finally got the courage to leave my alcoholic father, she was not able to access any of his air force pension, even though she’d put up with over twenty years of abuse, not to mention shepherding the family through 16 moves.Because I and my two sisters were disappointments to our father, who wanted sons, the moment we came out of the womb.Because countless times on the street, in the library, on the subway, strange men have groped me or tried to grope me, spoken sexist and obscene things to me, or exposed themselves to me.Because when I started in the music business, radio stations would never play two songs by women in a row, since apparently women all sounded the same. But they’d play endless male artists and bands one after the other.Because even in the folky/roots music world, I put up with my share of men coming on to me or attempting to coerce me into sex.Because when I started out as a solo act with my own band, I was called wishy-washy by a male musician when I wasn’t being decisive enough for his liking, and then when I became decisive, that same man called me a “ball-breaker”. And this kind of thing happened all the time to other women musicians I knew.Because I was nearly raped twice, once by a stranger and once by a supposed friend, and only escaped because I finally found my voice and screamed, though for the first terrifying minutes it was frozen in my throat.Because all these reasons (and others I could list) seem to pale in comparison with what other women put up with all over the world, every minute of every day. Think female infanticide, honour killings, genital mutilation, stoning to death for supposed adultery, abduction and enslavement, murder at the hands of their spouses, and rape rape rape rape rape.Because — and call me sexist if you want to for saying this — but we have yet to see the female equivalent of the Koch brothers, Osama bin Laden, or Donald Trump.And finally, since (mostly) male leaders have made a mess of our poor planet, surely it’s time to let women have more say in how we run things, because we can’t possibly make it any worse.

Leeds and Grenville Interval House

Leeds and Grenville Interval House (http://lgih.ca) provides emergency shelter, outreach counseling and transitional support for abused women and their children throughout the Leeds & Grenville area. We offer accommodation, counseling and a 24-hour crisis and support line for women in distress and offer support in the following areas:

• a 24-hour Crisis and Support Line
• short-term residential shelters for women and their children
• transitional and outreach services for women
• child witness program
• group programs

All of our services are confidential and offered free of charge.

Leeds and Grenville Interval House is committed to supporting women, children and youth experiencing violence and working collaboratively with the community to eliminate all forms of violence and oppression.